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Photography Marketing: What Flickr’s changes mean for photo sharing

When I first got started in photography, I was constantly on Flickr. I uploaded all my photos there, browsed tons of groups and crossed my fingers that some of my work would make it to the coveted Explore gallery.

While I’m no longer active on the service, I know several photographers — amateurs and professionals — who use Flickr on a daily basis. It’s a great method of sharing your photos and getting feedback from the photography community at-large. It can even help in terms of showing off your work to clients.

By Flickr changing its free tier to be limited to 1,000 photos, many users will be forced to either show only their best work or upgrade to a Pro plan. This change by Flickr, the world’s first photo sharing site that was heavily adopted by photographers, will ultimately cause it to become more of a niche site. What’s this mean?

Hobbyists will be pushed out

When Flickr introduced the ability to upload up to 1 TB in images a few years back, it was a major change that put the aging service back on the map. Flickr, then owned by Yahoo!, promised other changes along the way. But none of the other changes were really ever accepted by its user base. The service slowly began to fade into the background.

Enter SmugMug, Flickr’s new owner, with hopes to ramp up the use and usefulness of the service. But, by essentially forcing users to pay a yearly subscription fee, SmugMug is pushing out Flickr’s core market — the prolific hobbyist.

While professionals certainly use Flickr, hobbyists are what makes it live. This is obvious when you see that Apple iPhones are the service’s top camera brand, with Samsung’s Galaxy phones sitting in the fourth position. For the most part, pro photographers are going to upload work they take with their bigger cameras — not their smartphones. And Smug Mug believes that will hobbyists pay for a yearly Flickr Pro membership? I don’t think so.

The world of photo sharing is changing

With the hobbyists being pushed out of Flickr, and Google+ meeting its demise shortly, there’s only one real photo sharing platform left — Instagram. While you can post images to other networks like Facebook, there’s a lot more out there. Instagram puts the emphasis on images, while still allowing users to engage with comments or likes. Frankly, it’s really what Flickr should be in this day and social media age — and what the service tried (and failed to do) under Yahoo!’s ownership.

Additionally, this means as more and more people flock to Instagram and flee Flickr, being seen on Instagram will undoubtedly become more challenging. Taking advantage of things like account mentions and hashtags will be more important than ever. From a marketing perspective, Instagram will become what Flickr was for so many years — an alternative or perhaps even the primary portfolio for photographers.

SmugMug and Flickr will continue to get closer

Think of the SmugMug and Flickr combination like a relationship. Right now, it’s in its infancy. But as it continues to develop, especially with these changes slated to happen in January, SmugMug will continue to embed its thinking into the Flickr brand. The company has already announced that Flickr Pro users will be able to get a SmugMug portfolio site for 50% off. I wouldn’t be surprised at all to see this relationship continue to grow, with the two platforms being able to share photos and more.

This begs the question, as this marriage continues to foster, will Flickr eventually be swallowed up by SmugMug? At what point does Flickr become obsolete to SmugMug’s core audience?

Time to get creative

What these changes mean is that photographers who previously utilized Flickr will have to get creative. That might mean taking advantage of the Google Photos platform to store and share your photos with family and friends. It might mean using Instagram and Facebook to better market your photographs on a more regular basis. Finally, it might mean updating your website more frequently so your photos can be seen, or even starting a photoblog.

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Bryan is a photographer specializing in capturing corporate events, food/drink and advertising imagery. Based in Grand Rapids, MI, he has worked with clients such as CNBC, Michigan State University, ArtPrize, Steelcase, Grand Rapids Magazine and more. His work has also been featured by Delta Airlines, NBC, Microsoft, LiveStrong and Pure Michigan.

Just FYI, this: Flickr Pro users will be able to get a SmugMug portfolio site for 50% off. This offer is only for NEW SmugMug users. If you have an existing SmugMug account you don’t get that 50% deal. :(

I disagree in most of this. Maybe except that Instagram can be a good place to get attention for professional photographers (I’m not a pro, so only guessing. But you are probably right). But I think what SmugMug is doing is about to safe a site that was fast headed towards being shutdown. Giving away 1TB for free was suicide, and just made it a free backup-site for users who had no interest in the community, sharing or Flickr’s other features. In my eyes Flickr’s stongest asset, is how you can organize your photos. Something Yahoo never understood (they removed… Read more »

I agree that Flickr’s strongest asset is their organization. But if that organization isn’t instantly visible to visitors to a person’s photostream…then those features are diminished, in my eyes. I was optimistic about Flickr’s future when SmugMug bought the site. But with this new announcement, that optimism is gone. They would have been smart to build up the site to be more modern and get its following back to where it was, before they change the plan tiers on everyone. Flickr was a great place to share photos, and was a great place to have a community of photographers. Much… Read more »

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Fred

1 year ago

It is not surprising that phone cameras are the dominant source of photo’s on FlickR. DSLR sales have been declining for the past few years as consumers use their phone as a primary entertainment device. FlickR’s update a few years ago was to try and make it a social media site to TumblR their other accusation. It failed because users were forced fed FlickRs decision of what content is displayed when signing in to the service. Users could no longer customize their own landing page. Many people abandoned FlickR just for that reason. I personally don’t want or need any… Read more »

Good points, Fred. While I definitely don’t go through pages upon pages of photo streams, I know a lot of photographers personally who used Flickr as a casual backup service, or to find photos that they categorized appropriately. It was also easy for them to point potential photo purchasers / clients to specific photo albums. Beyond all of this, it was a nice service to see where you came from…and how you progressed as a photographer. But you’re right — the decisions by Yahoo! after they purchased Flickr really hurt the service. Their lack of listening to their user base… Read more »

Just FYI, this: Flickr Pro users will be able to get a SmugMug portfolio site for 50% off. This offer is only for NEW SmugMug users. If you have an existing SmugMug account you don’t get that 50% deal. :(

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Reply

Fred

10 months ago

It is not surprising that phone cameras are the dominant source of photo’s on FlickR. DSLR sales have been declining for the past few years as consumers use their phone as a primary entertainment device. FlickR’s update a few years ago was to try and make it a social media site to TumblR their other accusation. It failed because users were forced fed FlickRs decision of what content is displayed when signing in to the service. Users could no longer customize their own landing page. Many people abandoned FlickR just for that reason. I personally don’t want or need any… Read more »

Good points, Fred. While I definitely don’t go through pages upon pages of photo streams, I know a lot of photographers personally who used Flickr as a casual backup service, or to find photos that they categorized appropriately. It was also easy for them to point potential photo purchasers / clients to specific photo albums. Beyond all of this, it was a nice service to see where you came from…and how you progressed as a photographer. But you’re right — the decisions by Yahoo! after they purchased Flickr really hurt the service. Their lack of listening to their user base… Read more »

I disagree in most of this. Maybe except that Instagram can be a good place to get attention for professional photographers (I’m not a pro, so only guessing. But you are probably right). But I think what SmugMug is doing is about to safe a site that was fast headed towards being shutdown. Giving away 1TB for free was suicide, and just made it a free backup-site for users who had no interest in the community, sharing or Flickr’s other features. In my eyes Flickr’s stongest asset, is how you can organize your photos. Something Yahoo never understood (they removed… Read more »

I agree that Flickr’s strongest asset is their organization. But if that organization isn’t instantly visible to visitors to a person’s photostream…then those features are diminished, in my eyes. I was optimistic about Flickr’s future when SmugMug bought the site. But with this new announcement, that optimism is gone. They would have been smart to build up the site to be more modern and get its following back to where it was, before they change the plan tiers on everyone. Flickr was a great place to share photos, and was a great place to have a community of photographers. Much… Read more »

Just FYI, this: Flickr Pro users will be able to get a SmugMug portfolio site for 50% off. This offer is only for NEW SmugMug users. If you have an existing SmugMug account you don’t get that 50% deal. :(

I disagree in most of this. Maybe except that Instagram can be a good place to get attention for professional photographers (I’m not a pro, so only guessing. But you are probably right). But I think what SmugMug is doing is about to safe a site that was fast headed towards being shutdown. Giving away 1TB for free was suicide, and just made it a free backup-site for users who had no interest in the community, sharing or Flickr’s other features. In my eyes Flickr’s stongest asset, is how you can organize your photos. Something Yahoo never understood (they removed… Read more »

0

Reply

Fred

9 months ago

It is not surprising that phone cameras are the dominant source of photo’s on FlickR. DSLR sales have been declining for the past few years as consumers use their phone as a primary entertainment device. FlickR’s update a few years ago was to try and make it a social media site to TumblR their other accusation. It failed because users were forced fed FlickRs decision of what content is displayed when signing in to the service. Users could no longer customize their own landing page. Many people abandoned FlickR just for that reason. I personally don’t want or need any… Read more »

0

Reply

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